1. Technical Field
This patent application relates generally to image processing using an in-built repository of medical codes and, more particularly, but not by way of limitations, to an image-processing application with an in-built repository of medical codes that may be used to assist in lookup of appropriate international classification of diseases (ICD) and common procedure terminology (CPT) codes and assignment of the codes to scanned medical-record images.
2. History of Related Art
In today's medical-records processing environment, medical charts providing a diagnosis of and procedures performed on a patient are frequently provided by medical professionals to outside vendors in a scanned-image format (e.g., TIFF). The scanned images are typically routed to a medical-records coding team that is responsible for assigning ICD and CPT codes to the medical records. In a typical medical-record coding procedure, one software application is used for viewing the images, while another software application is used to add codes to an electronic image file. The codes are oftentimes determined via lookup in a book or manual.
In some cases, new specialty codes are not known to personnel entering the medical codes until some time after the new specialty codes become available due to delays in publication of books or manuals from which the codes are looked up. In addition, errors in code entry occur due to typographical mistakes when code-entry personnel mistype a code to be included on the medical record. In light of the above, improvements in systems and methods for determining, assigning, and adding medical-record codes to scanned-image medical records are needed.